


Wake Up Call

by tielan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Co-Sleeping, Community: trope_bingo, F/M, Fluff, Kissing, Sleepy Cuddles, Snowed In, Trope Bingo Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:24:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6455713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They share a bed. It's practical, that's all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake Up Call

**Author's Note:**

> For my [Trope Bingo 2015](http://tielan.dreamwidth.org/745653.html) (round five); challenged by **geckoholic** to write the square "snowed in" for Steve/Maria.
> 
> DONE!

By the time they reach the safehouse, Hill is operating on autopilot. It takes her two tries to get the code right, and even once the board is flashing green, she seems to be gathering her strength to push the door open.

Steve solves the problem by picking her up in his arms and shouldering the door open.

It’s a sign of how exhausted she is that she doesn’t protest his handling. In fact, from the way her head lolls as he strides through the external lean-to and eases her down onto the lounge, he judges that the last of her strength just gave out. 

Or maybe not. “Reset perimeter,” she manages. “Check supplies.”

Steve suppresses the quip about her last slave, and goes to reset the perimeter and check supplies. Considering the weather forecasts in this region, he doesn’t anticipate them being picked up for another couple of days. Even if there’s another Quinjet nearby, it would take a skilled pilot to get it down into this valley. Not that they’re going to starve – this ‘safehouse’ is well-stocked in MREs and nutrient bars.

He just hopes they’re stocked in coverings and blankets, because Hill wasn’t doing so well that last half-hour, her fingers hooked in the loops of his trousers, following in the trail he broke for them both. 

And, indeed, when he pokes his head out to report that they’re all set for the next couple of days, except for the woodpile which needs to be brought in, she hasn’t moved from where he laid her down. The fur-lined jacket enveloping her rises and falls with her breathing, and Steve starts over, then realises he’d probably do better to get the bed ready and then ease her into it, doing as little to disturb her as possible.

The bedroom is small and pretty warm for all that the fire isn’t lit. No windows, so it’s probably in the middle of the house. And blankets aplenty in the cupboard, along with changes of clothing in several sizes, although all in black. Since he doubts his ability to do more than get her out of her boots and the heavy jacket, he leaves the clothing and just pulls out the blankets. His metabolism will be fine, particularly once he has something to eat; but she’s probably going to be cold.

Hill wakes with a gasp as he picks her up. Her lashes flutter as her gaze focuses on him. “Rogers?”

“Safehouse,” he tells her. “I’m putting you to bed.”

“Don’t need a keeper.”

Except she really does since, when  Steve eases her down to the bed, she’s dozed off again.

The contrast between the woman who dispatched four mercenaries with some cool-headed shooting, and the woman who doesn’t even try to knee him in the face as he unlaces her boots is kind of startling. And strangely compelling in ways Steve doesn’t have the brain to parse right now, because he’s tired, and starting to get really hungry.

But he takes off Maria’s wet outer layers, eases her into the bed, makes sure she’s well covered by the blankets, and starts the wood heater before he heads out to the kitchen.

Two MREs and a quick sat-check later, Steve ventures outside to bring in the wood from the covered pile by the shed. The less they have to go out, the better, and once the place is heated, they don’t want to be opening the door all the time.

Outside, it’s bleak and dark, the wind creeping through the crevices of the jacket, stealing the warmth from his body as he makes the trips with increasingly stiff hands and body, trying to think of what else needs doing before he retires for the night.

The last trip is the worst; tramping through the trail he made before, shivering in spite of himself, although he’s been colder, endured worse back in the war.

_ That was before. _

Before the ice, before he froze in time, slept through seventy years and woke to a world that holds few of the certainties he held dear. Before he found himself adrift in a world that moved on without him. 

The wind curls around him, pushes through him, chilling his body, chilling his thoughts. S.H.I.E.L.D is a job, and one that he can do well, but it’s not a calling to do right, the way the war was. It feels good to carry on Peggy’s legacy, yes, but it doesn’t feel like enough, he isn’t sure that this is what he  _ wants... _

Abruptly, Steve realises he’s standing still in the middle of the clearing between the woodshed and the house, holding the barrow, freezing his fingers and toes in the snow for no reason other than the numb circling of his own thoughts.

He gets himself moving again, wheeling the barrow into the entry room and letting the door close behind him with a click of the latch. The wood is stacked up against one wall, cord by cord, and he leans the barrow up against the closed outer door before typing in the perimeter code again and watching the lights flash green one by one.

He’s hungry again – working in the cold gave him an appetite, so he warms up another MRE, strips off his outdoors gear and hangs it up, and wonders if he should warm something up for Maria, too. He doesn’t know when she last ate – not since they started on this ill-fated mission, and her body will be wanting something to fuel it...

Then again, that would require waking her, and it looks like her body needed the rest more than it needed food.

So he eats the MRE, does a last perimeter check, and then goes to look in on Maria.

She’s rolled into the middle of the bed, cocooned herself in blankets, like she’s cold. When Steve leans in – for some reason, he feels he needs to see her face – she jerks up, then sees him and relaxes.

“Rogers. Don’t do that.”

“Sorry,” he says, wondering what he should have done. “Are you cold?”

“Don’t have your metabolism.” Her eyes are already drifting shut. “All secure?”

“Seems so.” He sits on the edge of the bed. “I’ll stoke the fire before I go to sleep. The weather satfeeds aren’t promising. It looks like we’re going to be here a couple of days unless there’s a break in the storm.”

“Uhuh.” She seems to be drifting off, her expression neutral and relaxed, before she cracks an eyelid to look at him. “Share the bed.”

Steve blinks. “Excuse me?”

“You heard.” Her mouth curves, droll mockery. “Heat share. Practical.”

A laugh escapes him. ‘Practical’ - the god of Commander Maria Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Okay.”

“Okay?” She sounds surprised, and that surprises him.

“You were expecting an argument?”

“Sort of.” Her voice is a falling mumble against the whistle of the wind outside the cabin. “Gentlemanly.”

Steve snorts, thinking of a few nights among the Howling Commandos during the war when personal space became rather less personal. But he doesn’t mention it now; she’s just about back to sleep and this isn’t the time. “I’m gonna set a few things up and come back.”

The murmur of her response is almost inaudible beneath the blankets, and Steve leaves her to fall back asleep, pulls in the packs they grabbed when they realised they’d have to strike out cross-country, and begins to sort through them by the firelight. If they’re going to be here for a few days, he’d like to know what they’ve got and what they don’t.

There are heat blankets and a first aid kit, flares and emergency rations, radios and all manner of electrical components, a tablet and a package not much larger that claims to be a popup tent.... Not much, but enough to give them a little shelter and a chance to survive if they’d gotten stuck out in the storm.

Instead, they’re snowed in with each other.

Which, when Steve sits back on his haunches and considers it, isn’t terrible.

And, as a bonus, he gets to share a bed with a woman he respects and likes. Even if the bedsharing isn’t going to be _that_ way. Well a guy can’t have everything, can he? And Steve figures he must be really tired if his whimsy is getting the better of him like this.

His boots come off but his socks don’t; the sweater does because under that mountain of blankets that Maria’s huddled beneath, he’s almost certainly going to overheat, which may be fine by her, but isn’t so great for him.

And he’s stalling.

However, Maria barely moves when he sits down on the bed this time, just eases over as he slides in, a little awkwardly. Permission is one thing, how it’s actually going to work is quite another. Steve’s not entirely sure if he should lie right up against her or if that’s too forward. There are no guidelines for sharing beds with co-workers – although given all the other clauses and rules that he’s seen in these litigious and regulated times, he’s kind of surprised.  _ A distance of no more than one foot, but no less than three inches to be maintained at all times... _

He settles gingerly down on his back, then lifts his arm hurriedly as Maria rolls over, right up against his side, with no hesitation and no apparent shame, and settles in. It takes Steve a moment to untense himself – the intimacy is unexpected, and particularly from her. Then again, he reflects as her breathing evens out, she’s still pretty chilled, in spite of the layers of blankets covering her, so it’s not surprising she’d take the warmth he offered.

_ Don’t make so much of it, _ he tells himself.  _ She sure isn’t. _

It’s practical, that’s all.

Steve exhales, pulls the blankets up over them both – although mostly over her – settles his arm over the hunch of Maria’s shoulder, and allows his body to relax into sleep.

* * *

Maria wakes surprisingly warm, and with the scent of a guy in her nostrils, the warmth of his breath by her cheek. She shifts, stretches, layers of cloth shrouding hard muscle and warm flesh before big hands come around her waist, and a greeting rumbles in his chest. She lifts her mouth instinctively—

_ Heat share, _ comes the thought as his mouth covers hers.  _ Practical.  _ Her mouth opens on a gasp, but the catch of breath is swallowed by the kiss. Firm and gentle, his lips move over hers, rubbing soft and determined across her senses, tugging at something in her gut.  _ Gentlemanly... _

When he lifts his mouth from hers, Maria makes herself open her eyes, look up into a lazy blue gaze that sharpens as he, too, drifts back into reality from the hazy edge of waking.

“Should I apologise?”

Of course he’d ask that.

“We were both involved,” she says, her blood up, her cheeks heated, her lips still thrumming from the heavy inexorability of that kiss. “And never apologise for a wake-up kiss like that.”

He smiles, unnervingly lazy and satisfied for a man that she’s been very careful not to think of like that. “I’ll consider that a compliment, then.” And the smile deepens, even as the flush on his cheeks brightens and his lashes dip down, like curved curtains falling over the first act. “Good morning, Commander.”

The breath sucks out of her in soft laughter at the dulcet greeting. “Good morning, Captain.”


End file.
